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The Best Ways That You Can Improve Your Home Office

The Best Ways That You Can Improve Your Home Office

by | Nov 16, 2022 | Design Inspiration

Since the Covid-19 pandemic, more and more people have begun working from home and, as such, have started putting together effective home offices. There is a lot that goes into making a good home office. You might think that all you need is a good desk and comfortable chair, but there is a lot more to it than that. In this post we talk in more detail about some of the most effective ways you can improve your home office, so that you are effective at work and able to deliver consistent results.

Think About Your Role

Extra large monitor for home working
Photo by Luke Peters on Unsplash

The way that you shape your home office and what you use to put it together is largely going to vary based on what you do in your role. For instance, if you have an admin-based role, then just a standard internet connection and memory bank will suffice. However, there are other roles, particularly in the modern world, that require much more advanced technology.

For instance, a lot of people now trade the likes of NFTs to make money. This is now an accessible industry given NFTs are available for anyone to purchase and websites, such as https://www.okx.com/web3/nft/featured, are available that clearly show people which NFTs are popular and provide a platform for them to trade on. That being said, when you are working with NFTs, you need to be quick and also need to know how you can effectively store what you purchase. This means that you will need a much stronger connection and large memory in your home office. be sure to consider your role when you are purchasing equipment to put your home office together.

Use Good Headphones

Home office set up with a soft desk lamp
Photo by Michael Soledad on Unsplash

There are several different headphone options available to you which cover a range of budgets, but you must get a pair if you want to be productive when working from home. You will be surprised just how much it improves your quality when you are taking video calls and, as such, they are well worth getting for that reason alone.

Raise Your Monitor

One of the benefits of working from home is that you can personalise your home office
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

This is purely for comfort, but it will have a large impact on your overall productivity and how you feel when working. When you are looking at your monitor, your eyes should be nearly level with the top of the screen. A lot of the time people have their monitors way too low, and this means that they are hunched over which can lead to discomfort and back problems in the long run. If you use a laptop, then you should get yourself a laptop stand which will be able to add some more height to your device, which will make using it more comfortable.

Conclusion

If you have started to work from home, then you are going to want to make sure your home office is the best it can be. There are a few ways you can do this. For instance, you should consider the kind of work you do when buying equipment, and also raise your monitor and use earphones when you work.

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Review: Hinomi H1 Pro Ergonomic Chair

Review: Hinomi H1 Pro Ergonomic Chair

by | Oct 14, 2022 | Design Inspiration, Furniture

A woman sat at a desk working on a laptop in a pink office.

An ergonomic chair is an absolute must whether you work in a corporate office or work from home. Research shows that office workers spend 75% of their waking hours sitting down which places a lot of pressure and strain on the body and can add stress to the spine.

No matter where we work, it is important that our seating is comfortable and supports our body and protects it from work-related injuries such as back, neck, and shoulder pain. Ergonomic chairs really shouldn’t be considered a luxury if we hope to protect our backs while working from a desk for extended periods. Instead we should see them as an investment in our own health and well-being, after all prevention is better than cure as the old adage goes.

What is an Ergonomic Chair?

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, ergonomics is “the scientific study of people and their working conditions, especially done in order to improve effectiveness”. With that in mind, an ergonomic chair is one that has been designed to best support the human body whilst sitting at a desk. Therefore the design takes into consideration posture, comfort, support and health.

Ergonomic chairs offer specific features that have been designed to improve our posture and support the neck and back. A good ergonomic chair is adjustable so that it can be used by people of different heights and sizes to ensure the correct fit.

What are the Benefits of an Ergonomic Office Chair?

Whilst the main benefit of an ergonomic chair is the support that they provide to keep our backs and necks healthy, they also prevent problems that are associated with poor back health such as irritability, depression, inability to concentrate and digestive problems.

A well-adjusted ergonomic chair will also have a positive effect on our circulation ensuring that we have good blood flow in the legs.

How to Set up an Ergonomic Office Chair Correctly?

However, ergonomic chairs can only provide these benefits if they are adjusted correctly for the user. This means adjusting the seat height so that the user’s knees are at a 90-degree angle with feet flat on the floor.

It means adjusting the lumbar support so that it fits comfortably in the lumbar area of the back. It must be high enough to fit against the lumbar and forward enough so they don’t need to lean back to get the backrest support.

It means positioning the armrests directly underneath a neutral elbow position so that the shoulders stay in a comfortable posture. The armrest should carry the weight of the arm and the elbow should be positioned directly below the shoulder. It is also important to make sure that the arms are close to the torso and not flexed outwards.

Hinomi H1 Pro Ergonomic Office Chair Review

Component parts of an office chair on a grey carpet

As many of you know, I opened a small coworking space for female entrepreneurs back in 2020. I had a very limited budget so I did the best I could at the time and bought the IKEA LÅNGFJÄLL office chair for all the desks. They are extremely comfortable and I am always getting comments from the women who work here about how comfortable they are.

So I have never had any reason to question my decision. That is until I was asked to review the Hinomi H1 Pro ergonomic chair. In all honesty, I wasn’t really expecting anything ground-breaking but I wanted to test it out as I had never used a chair like this before. Even when I worked in corporate offices I had only ever had run-of-the-mill office chairs, so I was intrigued to see how the Hinomi compared.

The delivery of the chair was extremely quick, arriving just a few days after the order was placed. When I unpacked it from the box, it came in four separate parts: the wheelbase, the seat, the headrest and the wheels. It all came packaged in a protective, cushioned, silver wrapping.

The head rest of an office chair on a desk with some small tools and screws

There was even a small bag included which contains a tool to help construct the chair and some spare bolts. An A4 booklet provides easy-to-follow instructions to help you assemble and adjust the seat. The booklet also includes QR codes that you can scan to be taken to videos if you are more of a visual learner. I found the video a lot more helpful when it came to adjusting the chair. It was a very nice option to have.

Breathable & Fire-resistant Mesh

The Hinomi H1 Pro Ergonomic Office Chair in a pink office

Unlike the other office chairs I have used in the past, the Hinomi H1 Pro ergonomic chair is made from a breathable and fire-resistant mesh. I have previously always had chairs where the seat and back support are padded. The office chair we have at home is the JÄRVFJÄLLET from IKEA which has a mesh back support and padded seat.

I have been extremely surprised by just how much more supportive and comfortable the mesh seat is. I often find that I get coccyx pain after a long day at the office sitting at my desk all the time. Since I have been using the Hinomi I haven’t felt any coccyx pain at all so maybe a mesh seat is the way to go.

I really like the give that the mesh provides as well. It is supportive but also offers some nice resistance which you just don’t get from a padded chair.

5D Transformable Armrests

The armrest of the Hinomi H1 Pro Ergonomic Office Chair
A close up of a woman's arm on the armrest of the Hinomi H1 Pro Ergonomic Office Chair

Before writing this review, I wasn’t actually aware of how important correct armrest positioning is. When I chose the chairs for the coworking space I deliberately chose ones with no arms. I am only 5ft 2″ so most chairs that have fixed armrests are not in an ideal position for me and I always found that they prevented me from getting close enough to the desk. They were also usually too high meaning my shoulders weren’t in a neutral position.

The armrests on the Hinomi are 5D transformable armrests which sounds very futuristic. What that means though is that they are height adjustable to make sure that your elbows can be directly positioned below your shoulders at the right angle. They also rotate from side to side to ensure that you can get the correct distance between your arms and your torso. You can also flip them up to better position them for reading or gaming. They can also slide backwards and forwards depending on the length of your arms.

Wide Curved Headrest 

The headrest of the Hinomi H1 Pro Ergonomic Office Chair
A woman's head against the headrest of the Hinomi H1 Pro Ergonomic Office Chair
A closeup of the headrest of the Hinomi H1 Pro Ergonomic Office Chair

Having not had a headrest on my chair for so long, I didn’t realise what I was missing out on. The one on the Hinomi is particularly wide and nicely curved. I was really surprised by just how adjustable it is. The height can be adjusted up and down, and the headrest can also be moved backwards and forwards to ensure it adapts perfectly to the neck.

3D Lumbar Support

A closeup of the lumbar support of the Hinomi H1 Pro Ergonomic Office Chair

The lumbar support that the Hinomi H1 Pro ergonomic chair provides can be adjusted using the wheel at the base of the back rest. This has four gears which provides four levels of forward support. The lumbar support supports the back when sitting normally, leaning back and leaning forwards.

I think this is the thing that stood out most to me. Feeling this level of support on my lower back was a real game changer and something I had not experienced with other office chairs.

Adjustable Seat Depth

A close up of the legs of a woman sat in an office chair

The seat slides back and forth allowing you to regulate your position depending on your height and leg length. As someone who is quite short, I have often found that chairs that don’t offer this level of customisation result in a completely wrong position for my legs. With the Hinomi I was able to adjust the chair so that my feet could be flat on the floor, my legs at 90 degrees and the edge of the seat a few inches back from my knees.

This felt so much more comfortable than other chairs I had used in the past as I don’t feel like I need to find a step or a footrest to help adjust my posture.

Recline & Retractable Leg Rest

The legrests of the Hinomi H1 Pro Ergonomic Office Chair
A closeup of the legs of a woman supported by the legrests of the Hinomi H1 Pro Ergonomic Office Chair
A woman reclined in an office chair in a pink office surrounded by plants

The leg rest was a really pleasant surprise and I hadn’t realised that this was a function of the chair. I’d also not seen it on any other ergonomic office chairs before. Under the seat are two paddles that can be extended to support your legs. When you recline the chair fully, these help you to achieve a near-perfect position for relaxing and maybe even taking a sneaky mid-day nap.

The chair is easy to recline using the lever on the left-hand side under the seat and can be locked in position.

5 Level Backrest Heights

A rear view of a woman sat in an office chair in a pink office surrounded by plants

Even the backrest has five levels of height adjustment so it can be adjusted to fit anyone between 160 cm and 200 cm tall. Being so short at 157.5cm, I needed to put mine on the shortest level but even being below the recommended height for this chair I found that it was still extremely comfortable for me.

It is easy to adjust as well by simply pulling up the backrest until you hear it click up to the next level. To put it down you simply need to pull it up slightly before lowering it.

A woman sat at a desk working on a laptop

Is an Ergonomic Office Chair Worth it?

So, is an ergonomic chair worth it? In my opinion, absolutely and I feel quite foolish for not having invested in a better chair given just how much time I spend sitting in mine every day. Since I have been using the Hinomi H1 Pro ergonomic chair I have had no coccyx pain at all and even my shoulders have felt less tense.

The Hinomi, with its 12 calibration points that enable users to fully customize the chair to perfectly fit their body profile from head to toe, is absolutely worth the investment when deciding what chair to buy for your home office.

The chair is available in six colourways: Black, Grey, Coral, Red, Ice Green, Gaming Red, Gaming Yellow. I am not a fan of office chairs that are too dark as they take up so much visual space in a small room so I chose the ice green which is a really nice, light colour.

The fact that the foldable frame lets you fold the whole chair to push it under the desk is also a great space-saving feature. I’m not sure how much I will need to use it but it is good to know that it is an option should I need to.

I discovered on the website that the frame and wheelbase have a 10-year warranty and the lumbar support, central mechanism hub, armrest mechanism and castor mechanism have a 5-year warranty. However, by sharing a photograph of your Hinomi H1 Pro ergonomic chair on FaceBook, Instagram, YouTube or TikTok and submitting the link to Hinomi you can extend the warranty by five years.

Overall, I was seriously impressed with the Hinomi H1 Pro and I am hoping that by using my new ergonomic chair in conjunction with my standing desk, I will be able to improve my posture and protect my back and neck from any further damage.

Have you invested in yourself and bought an ergonomic desk chair or are you making do? If you have, how have you found it? Have you noticed a difference? If not, would you consider getting one? Let me know in the comments below.

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Product Of The Week: Balloon Dog Tape Dispenser

Product Of The Week: Balloon Dog Tape Dispenser

by | Oct 9, 2022 | Design Inspiration

Inspired by the work of Jeff Koons, this fun balloon dog tape dispenser supplies sticky tape from its back via a cutter on its tail.

Get it here.

Recommended Reading:  101 Gifts For Architects And Designers

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